


a land without flowers

by alittlepieceofgundamwing_archivist



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Dacia Favourite, Established Relationship, Ficlet, Flowers, Infidelity, M/M, POV Duo Maxwell, Post EW, Sad, Yaoi, lyrical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-22 02:32:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14298840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlepieceofgundamwing_archivist/pseuds/alittlepieceofgundamwing_archivist
Summary: by Zillie--Every Monday and Friday on my way home from school, I stop and buy myself flowers. Sometimes they're the cheap ones in Tesco, half a dozen tulips for two pounds; sometimes I stop in a florist and pick them out, individually. Roses. Calla lilies. Sunflowers. Daffodils. Anything big and bright and yellow I like. Anything that is like the sun I put in a jar on my desk and stare at for days.





	a land without flowers

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Dacia, the archivist: this work was originally archived at [A Little Piece of Gundam Wing](https://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Little_Piece_Of_Gundam_Wing), which closed in 2017. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after July 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [a little piece of gundam wing collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/alittlepieceofgundamwing/profile).
> 
> note: winner of best ficlet in the 2002 **a little piece of gundam wing** fanfic contest

Every Monday and Friday on my way home from school, I stop and buy myself flowers. Sometimes they're the cheap ones in Tesco, half a dozen tulips for two pounds; sometimes I stop in a florist and pick them out, individually. Roses. Calla lilies. Sunflowers. Daffodils. Anything big and bright and yellow I like. Anything that is like the sun I put in a jar on my desk and stare at for days.  
  
+  
  
Right after the war he wanted to get a plant. He liked ferns, so we got one and stuck it in our apartment. And I watered it every few days and kept it in the sunlight and talked to it, even, and within six months it was dead. I'm still not sure why. It just started turning brown at the tips, and the brown crept down the middle until the whole thing was stiff and dry and gone. I kept talking to it, though, and then one day I came home and found that he'd thrown it away.  
  
+  
  
I never worried about him and Relena, though a lot of people thought I should. I knew him better than that, knew that he knew himself better than that. She wasn't what he needed. We both knew that. She wasn't even what he wanted. What he wanted was something bright and shiny, somebody he could share a small apartment and a fern with. Somebody to be normal with. What he needed, I was so sure, was me.  
  
+  
  
When I found, out I yelled at him about the fern. Wilbur, I called it, a joke that only I ever got, but one that amused me every time I danced with him around the room singing songs from Charlottes Web. After he started turning brown he would leave little bits behind. I had to vacuum after every dance. But I was sure, absolutely certain, that I could make him better. That if I danced with him or sang to him or told him I loved him one more time the brown would go away and he would be all right. I hated that Heero threw Wilbur away; when he told me that he'd slept with someone else, that was what I yelled at him for.  
  
"Who?" I asked, strangely calm.  
  
"Rafe. The Preventer who works with Jan Myles."  
  
I turned and looked out the window. "Why?"  
  
He has this thing he does where his whole body sort of twitches. I think it's the Heero Yuy approximation of a shrug. He did it then. "We were talking. We were drinking. We. . . about the war. There was pain in his voice, honest pain. And I got to thinking about all the people who were never going to sit in a pub with their friends again. . . and he told me about his sister, who was killed during the war. And before I knew it, I was inside him and the faster I moved the less I thought about all the people who would never touch anyone ever again."  
  
"You don't talk to me about the war anymore," I said.  
  
He moved towards me; I backed away. "That's because when I'm around you I don't want to think about it. I want to think about good things. The future. You."  
  
"So you go out and fuck random guys."  
  
His eyes are open, honest. I don't believe him when he says, "Only once. It was a mistake." He might not be lying, but he will be next time.  
  
"Was it rough?"  
  
The question takes him aback; he answers it anyway. "A little."  
  
"You're never rough with me."  
  
"I love you."  
  
"We're seventeen years old, Heero. Its supposed to get a little rough sometimes."  
  
"I thought you'd yell."  
  
I turn back to the window. "Why did you throw away Wilbur?"  
  
He was taken aback. "Wilbur?"  
  
"My fern."  
  
"Duo. It was dead."  
  
I knew I looked anguishe'd; I remember the unfamiliar feeling of tears in my eyes. "I was going to save him."  
  
"Duo, it was really dead."  
  
"You'd know, wouldn't you?" I snapped, not regretting my words a second later like any decent person would have. I hurt him  
  
And he fucked Rafe Johanns, Preventer.  
  
"I don't talk about the war because it makes you unhappy. I only work part time because you like having me here, puttering around like some housewife. I cook for you and I clean for you and I wash your socks and I give you head with your eggs in the morning. I do my best to give you whatever it is you say you want. So tell me, Heero, what is it I couldnt give you last night?"  
  
He didn't answer.  
  
"I always thought I could forgive you anything," and I was crying by that time, "but you threw away Wilbur."  
  
Two months later I began my study of Japanese poetry in a little Scottish town on the North Sea.  
  
+  
  
I didn't have any plants in my room; I had fingered a few ferns in the nursery in town, but hadn't quite been able to deal with the thought of having something else to take care of. I was busy. Taking care of me. Taking care of him even though he wasn't there to know it. Every night I said good-night to him, and settled into bed, curling up behind the imaginary planes of his back. Every night I kissed his air-shoulder and told him I loved him. Every night I pressed my ear to my wrist and pretended I could hear his heartbeat.  
  
+  
  
A few months into my study I came across a poem by a woman known as Lady Ise:  
  
_Forsaking the mists_  
That rise in the spring  
Wild geese fly off.  
They have learned to live  
In a land without flowers.  
  
+  
  
Something about the calm desolation of it nearly had me in tears in the library.  
  
On my way home I stopped and bought myself carnations.  
  
+  
  
I didn't have any vases, so I hacked the top off of a water bottle and set it on my bedside table, beside my lamp. All day as I worked I found myself stealing glances at the flowers, the pinks and reds and whites and purples, some lined in a darker shade at the edges. They reminded me of pain. I chucked them out the window.  
  
The next day I bought daffodils, and put them on my desk, next to my computer.  
  
During a period of frustration, I pulled one from the mock vase and raised it to my face.  
  
+  
  
Somehow the petals of flowers feel like cool skin; somehow when you drag them over your body you can pretend it is his touch you feel. Sometimes when they skim over your mouth you find yourself kissing them as if they are your lover. Sometimes when you crawl into bed and lay one on your chaste pillow the sweet smell of you reminds you of life.  
  
+  
  
I sent him a card yesterday. Day after tomorrow is the anniversary of the day he saved me from Oz. I didn't say much; just hello, I miss you. And I sat and chewed my way completely through a pen (dyed my tongue blue) before working up the courage to sign it 'love, Duo'. In the end I did, because it's true, and because not enough people love him, and because I'm hoping that before too long he'll figure out that I could give him what he needs if he would let me. Hell, I'm hoping that he'll reply to this card, that he'll show up on my doorstep, and that he'll give me that look I can never say no to. I'm hoping he'll come in when I invite him, and that he'll look around, and smile. I'm hoping that Heero Yuy can learn to live in a land with flowers.  
  
And I'm thinking about getting a new fern.  
  
end


End file.
